Sunday, October 18, 2009

Reubens starts from the pole! The Brasilian fans are going wild! The first corner should be exciting.

There were a couple of nasty crashes on the first lap and the safety car was deployed. Sutil, Liuzzi and Alonso are out on the first lap.

The race settled down after that.

Brawn won the constructor's championship. That team wasn't very good until Ross took over the team this year. You kind of wonder how Ferrari feels now, since they booted Ross after Michael Schumacher retired. You also wonder how Honda feels - this team was Honda last year, and they couldn't play dead. This year, they win the constructor's championship.

Mark Webber wins the race. No drama. Unlike last year's race.

Jenson Button wins the drivers championship with a fifth place finish today.

This was a fairly entertaining F1 season. There is one more race in two weeks in Abu Dhabi.

I've watched most of the Wings games so far this season. They have not looked very good. They are clearly not as good as they were last year, and that wasn't good enough.

They have some potential, if some of the kids play well, however, they lost a lot of talent over the off season, and that is a large gap to fill. Also, the injury to Franzen will not help.

Many of the teams in the Western Conference are improved this year. Edmonton will be fun to watch. The Kings are much better than they have been for a while. Colorado is also better. The Blues should be tough to play.

It is especially sad to see empty seats in the Joe and to hear the commercials during the telecast for tickets. This team used to have a waiting list for season tickets. It is in large part due to the poor economy in Michigan that the Wings are having such a hard time selling tickets.

They lost on Saturday to the Avs in a shootout. The Wings blew a two goal lead in the third period.

I think it will be a tough year for the Wings. I wouldn't be surprised if they do not make the playoffs.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

I've liked Formula One since they held a few races on the streets of Detroit back in the 80s. I was working in the Renaissance center at the time and it was in the middle of the track. I didn't watch the race, but I did walk around during Friday practice one year.

I am watching qualifying on Saturday as I type this. It is raining hard on the course. These are the best drivers in the world, so we expect them to be able to race in the rain. The on-board camera shots give some indication of just how poor the visibility is.

I always contrast that with the NASCAR attitude that says "We can't race in the rain."

I am an early riser, so I don't have an issue with getting up early on Sunday morning to watch an F1 race from Europe. I'm not dedicated enough to stay up and watch the races from Asia that start at 1am ET.

The completed the first qualifying session, but red flagged the second session following a nasty crash. It's raining very hard. The course has a number of elevation changes, which results in water running across the course.

They will finish qualifying this afternoon, but there is college football on, as well. I am going to watch that.